Challenge Area 09: Health Disparities. Topic 09-ES-101*: Building trust between researchers and communities through capacity building in Environmental Public Health ABSTRACT: Preventing Child Residential Lead Exposure By Window Replacement Childhood lead poisoning remains the most ubiquitous and pernicious child environmental exposure and disproportionately affects impoverished, minority children living in pre-1950s housing. We propose to build partnerships that can rapidly and effectively implement the job creation goals of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, especially in impoverished communities with older housing stock. We will implement and rigorously study a housing intervention (window replacement and/or repair) that can simultaneously reduce children's lead exposure, increase energy efficiency, reduce associated power plant emissions, and reduce foreclosures by increasing home value. Traditionally, weatherization programs have not addressed windows because other modifications to homes are thought be more beneficial from an energy perspective. Similarly, lead poisoning prevention programs have not incorporated use of energy-efficient windows due to the increased expense. Despite the fact that both programs are often performing similar work, weatherization and lead poisoning prevention officials have not collaborated. We propose to build capacity for such collaboration in three communities in the New York State that have active weatherization and lead poisoning prevention programs through a research project that will examine the effect of window replacement and repair on levels of lead in house dust, the principal source of exposure for most children. We also will produce written materials that effectively link weatherization with lead poisoning prevention activities and a web-site that will inform multiple agencies and constituencies of the significant gains to housing and community health by linking the primary prevention of childhood lead exposure to activities that will be carried out by multiple private and public agencies as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. This effort also will begin to build capacity and trust between local communities and researchers to expand the use of lead-safe window replacement as a way of achieving both energy conservation and public health goals. We have assembled a remarkable team with the National Center for Healthy Housing, the only non-profit organization devoted to studying effective ways to produce healthy homes for the American public, working with a Principal Investigator with more than 35 years of experience of leadership in the prevention, treatment, administration of programs, conduct of research, and consulting to state and federal governments about childhood lead poisoning. Moreover, widespread support for this proposal has already been gathered as both elected officials and the NYS Coalition to End Lead Poisoning have contributed to the proposal and are committed to work with us on this. This project holds great promise in changing the way in which weatherization and lead poisoning prevention programs approach their work, and if broadly implemented, could create huge numbers of jobs, stabilize housing prices in impoverished communities, and contribute to the end of lead poisoning in the United States, one of our nation's most shameful environmental inequities. 1 09-ES-101 Building Trust between researchers and communities through capacity building in environmental Public Health, or 09-MD-102-Transdisciplinary Research to Integrate the Biological and Non-biological Determinants of Health to Address Health Disparities PROJECT NARRATIVE: Childhood lead poisoning remains the most ubiquitous and pernicious child environmental exposure and disproportionately affects impoverished, minority children living in pre-1950s housing. We propose to build partnerships that can rapidly and effectively implement the job creation goals of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, especially in impoverished communities with older housing stock, by implementing and rigorously studying a housing intervention (window replacement and/or repair) that can simultaneously reduce children's lead exposure, increase energy efficiency, reduce associated power plant emissions, and reduce foreclosures by increasing home value while at the same time developing written and web-based materials and beginning to develop trust and partnerships between community officials and residents, environmental health researchers, and lead poisoning prevention and weatherization groups.